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Saturday, September 22, 2018

Coulee City, Wa. to Catfish Junction, Oregon

We are now in Catfish Junction and I am catching up the last two days.

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This is Wednesday night when I’d planned huevos rancheros for dinner.  Unfortunately when I checked the fridge I’d left the tortillas at home.  A momentary panic until Eric said “ Well, put them on toast!”  Eric is not in the least bit fussy and as long as he gets fed he is happy.  So “huevos rancheros ala rye toast” and it was just fine.  I poach the eggs in a chili tomato sauce with a little salsa mixed in. 

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It was a beautiful evening.

Now for Thursday.  Well nothing happened.  I’ve got a cold and just felt plain lousy and we were both tired from our trip to Kelowna and all the shopping and visiting so we just rested. 

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Friday morning and we were up at 6am as we had over 300 miles to go to Catfish Junction.  The weather was mild and sunny with no wind so it was all good.

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As we pulled out of the park you can see there were quite a few RV’s and they are mostly fishermen from Washington. 

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The park is a bit rustic but it’s a reasonably priced ($30) full hook up in a nice setting.

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Turn left for Soap lake and onward.

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The Dry Falls look out.  If you ever come this way please stop and have a look…it is truly amazing.

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Heading down the long hill and I can never resist a few pictures.  The camera lens is scratched and windshield isn’t clean but…it still looks pretty good.

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The light this morning was just perfect for a picture.

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We just love the landscape here.  We are almost into Soap Lake where we used to stay at the Soap Lake resort.  That was when the price was reasonable and it wasn’t called Smokium!

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As we got closer to Othello where we’d pick up fuel the huge feed lots appeared.  These are dairy cattle but I will guess most of them will never see the inside of a milking parlour!  This is one of the reasons that grand daughter Abby is a vegetarian.

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Lots of cattle having breakfast.

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Huge covered piles of silage.

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Farther on and I tried to get a picture of the this field that is covered in drying onions.  Huge crop that would be worth a lot of money as onions are over a dollar a pound.

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Now ….red onions.

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Massive amounts of hay under cover for the winter.

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Here they have harvested a crop and are now ready to bale it.   Almost looked like it was left from harvesting corn for silage.

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Bad picture but this is where we get on 395 south.  It’s a really hard turn to find and we’ve missed it in the fog before. 

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The northbound traffic is sharing the two lane freeway with all sorts of farm machinery.  Lots and lots of tractors.

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We passed through the tri cities (Pasco, Kenniwick, Richland) and headed south.  On our first try at this back in 2009 we missed the right turn as it didn’t have an exit number and ended up downtown.  It all worked out but it was more than a little stressful.

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Nice little RV park on the Columbia River.

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Wide open and the traffic wasn’t too heavy today.

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They are redoing the bridge so we shared the northbound highway.  They were working on this bridge when we came through last year.

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We’re in Oregon.

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Remember those onions.   Well here you can see mountains of what appears to be onion skins and those storage houses are full of…onions!

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Hundreds of roots houses to protect the storage crops in the winter.

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A truck full of onions…hope one doesn’t bounce off.

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Coming into Pendleton and then on up and over Cabbage hill.   We stopped at the fuel station on the east side of the highway before the Wildhorse Casino to get fuel and have lunch. 

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We’re on our way up and it’s about 25C.  Always a worry for us pulling a heavy RV with a 3/4 ton truck.  Overheating can always be an issue even with a transmission cooler.

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A long way down.

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Road work.  Throughout Oregon we have had long areas with lots of construction signs and cones and not a worker to be seen. 

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So how did we fare going up and over.  Well….the truck said the engine was too hot as well as the transmission.  We didn’t boil over or go into limp mode.  When we got to the top Eric discovered he didn’t have the truck in tow haul and that was probably the issue with the over heating along with the age of the truck (2005) and the heavy trailer.  An easy mistake but a stressful one.

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Past La Grande and now another big hill before Baker City.   Truck now in tow haul and there was no overheating before Baker City.

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Abandoned stone building right at the edge of the freeway.  I wonder who lived here?  This house looks like a person’s face and probably has many stories to tell.

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More construction and….not a worker to be see anywhere.

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Coming down the long hill towards Weiser and the old highway to Catfish Junction.

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Under the highway.

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Way up ahead is the RV park…about 2 1/2 miles off the highway.

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It was Friday night so we expected the park might be a little more full than usual….and it was but only for the pull thrus.

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In the end we parked in the south end of the park where there is only power and water (dump station right behind us) and we like it better.  Much quieter and still a pull thru so all is well.

Today is Saturday and tomorrow we’ll head for Jackpot where we’ll spend one night. 

Upon reading fellow blogger Contessa’s post this morning I saw a comment saying that there has been huge flooding in Sonora and Sinaloa.  There has been huge highway damage and the Mexican people in areas such as Culliacan, Los Mochis and Guyamas are in flood crisis.  We’ll stay informed and I know that fellow travellers will post road conditions as they travel south.  Contessa forwarded a link to the ….https://themazatlanpost.com for up to date info.  Poor people. 

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